Freezing Fire
by MoonlightMystery13.3
Summary: "There's nothing under Kaz's fingers, not even a flutter. Still, he can't quite bear to let Oliver's wrist go. That would mean accepting that there's nothing there to find, that Oliver is really- really gone." This one is darker, involves a major character death, and is rated a high T, probably PG-13. THANK YOU, guest reviewer of Cool Robot Spiders. You totally made my week! :)


A/N: This is actually an idea I've had bouncing around in my head for a while now. One of the most irritating things about Mighty Med is how little Oliver is appreciated. He's smart, kind, and funny, and yet people are always putting him down. Even Kaz, his best friend, constantly insults him. I know he doesn't mean it, but it's still painful to watch, and I feel like it could seriously damage Oliver's self-esteem. So, much to Oliver's objections, I decided to take this to an extreme, and kill Oliver off, just so force Kaz to face a reality without his best friend. (Oliver and I actually had a lengthy argument over this, him complaining that it wasn't fair to kill him off because other people didn't appreciate what a good person he is, not even taking into account how much it would hurt Kaz. I didn't really have an answer for that, but it didn't stop me writing this.) This is set between the end of Mighty Med, and the beginning of Lab Rats: Elite Force. I did think a little about how the events of Elite Force might change with a quiet, angry Kaz, and no Oliver, but I probably won't actually go there with a fic. Enjoy, or don't, and remember that I love reviews. :)

If any of you crazy talented people out there would like to make a cover for this fic, I would be forever grateful. I'm not very good at any art other than photography; the subtleties of fan art are beyond me.

Rating: Right now, I have it at T for emotional whump, implied violence, and nongraphic described violence. If you think I should change it to M, I will.

 **WARNING** : This is probably clear is you read the author's note above, but just in case, this story involves a **major character death,** and the emotional fallout of that. If you don't care for that, you'll want to pass on this one.

* * *

"No..." Kaz breathes, frozen in the doorway of the room, fear flooding his body and holding it fast. His eyes are fixed on the figure crumpled in the middle of the floor. The all too familiar figure.

"No, no, no, no, no," he chants as he explodes into the room, falling to his knees. His frantically searching eyes take in the unkempt hair, the bruises peeking out from torn cloth, and the utter and complete lack of movement.

"No... Oliver..." Kaz grasps his best friend's shoulder, and turns him over. Oliver's eyes are closed, skin pale as porcelain, except where a bruise or scrape mars its whiteness. Kaz, with his heart in his mouth, grasps Oliver's wrist, feeling desperately for a pulse, begging anything and anyone that might be listening that he will find one. He tries not to think about how cold the skin under his fingers is, tries to dismiss all the signs trying to tell him what he doesn't want to hear.

"Please, Oliver," he pleads quietly, desperately. "Wake up. Come on. Don't be-" Kaz can't bear to finish the thought. "Just wake up, Oliver. Please..."

There's nothing under Kaz's fingers, not even a flutter. Still, he can't quite bear to let Oliver's wrist go. That would mean accepting that there's nothing there to find, that Oliver is really- really gone.

Tears start falling unheeded down Kaz's face. A few splash down onto the floor, one onto the limp head in his lap. He brushes it away. Oliver shouldn't look like he's crying. Not now that he's-

"He asked for you, you know," says a slightly mocking voice, issuing from the shadows hugging the walls. "Begged you to come save him."

Kaz's head shoots up. A woman stands there before him, with blond hair and eyes very like Oliver's. She smiles, but there is no mirth in her eyes.

Kaz shakes his head slowly. "Bridget..." he says quietly, surprised that he can't feel the anger he should at this woman. It should hurt that Oliver's dead. It should rip him to shreds. And yet all he feels is numb "I know you're evil. I know you're utterly deranged. But I thought you loved him."

She waves a hand condescendingly. "He was annoying-"

"HE WAS YOUR SON!" Kaz bellows, anger flaring up for a moment, but quickly overcome again by the cloying numbness.

"-but yes, I loved him." Bridget finishes quietly, ignoring his outburst.

Kaz snorts. He practically grew up with Oliver. Bridget had never exactly been warm and cuddly, but he had truly believed that she had loved her son. Until the moment he walked into the room, and Oliver was dead. "You loved him. Right. Then why is he dead? Why did you kill him?"

Bridget tips her head to one side, and surveys the scene. Her broken son on his best friend's knees. It would have moved her, once. She smiles slightly, and settles on asking a question of her own. "A better question, Kaz," she says quietly, every word a blow, "is why was he alone?"

Kaz closes his eyes, and she knows her blades have hit home. "He came to save you," Kaz says bitterly, and looks up again. "Did you know that? He came looking for you. I told him it wasn't worth it. That you're beyond help. He didn't seem entirely convinced, but I thought I'd talked him out of leaving right away. Next morning, I woke up, and he was gone. There wasn't a note, but I knew where he'd gone."

"Except you didn't."

"Yeah. He never mentioned where he thought you were. I was on my own."

Bridget raises a pale, perfect eyebrow. "And none of the "heroes" would aid in your search for him? I thought they were rather attached to him. Honestly," she says, breezily, "I expected you days ago."

Kaz hates Bridget. He hates everything about her, but in this moment, he most hates her flippancy, her casual disregard for what she's done. She killed her own son. And not just her son, but Kaz's best friend, one of the best people he'd ever met. A hero.

"Mighty Med is gone," he says softly, voice shaking slightly. "Completely destroyed. No one survived." That was true, as far as he knew. But he wonders it someone else had survived, because there had been boot prints before he'd been there. He could be wrong, but they looked a lot like Skyler's. If finding Oliver hadn't been his first priority, he would have tried to find her.

Bridget shows no surprise at the news, but something flickering behind her eyes makes Kaz think this is the first time she's heard of it.

"I see," she says, dryly. "And so, you are truly alone. Kaz, the last of the superheroes. You, against every supervillain in the entire world." She sits, gracefully, in a chair Kaz hadn't really registered even being there, and leans forward towards him, steepling her fingers. "How does that feel?" She asks almost gently, genuine curiosity in her eyes.

"I don't know," Kaz answers softly, surprising himself with his honesty. Bitterness flooded his voice, along with a swell of grief. "I haven't thought about it much... too busy trying to mourn my best friend."

"Mm. Who you came too late to save." Kaz flinches visibly, and his hand tightens on Oliver's jacket, clutching it like a lifeline. He looks broken, but she continues ruthlessly. "You may have saved the people who saved people," she spits, using his own private joke against him. "But you couldn't save him, no matter how much he cried for you."

Tears run down Kaz's face, now, as if Bridget's words had shattered a floodgate within his soul. Bridget's eyes follow them, reveling in the hurt she had inflicted, the pain she's instilled in him.

She had indeed loved Oliver once. She'd been telling the truth when she said everything she had done as Mr. Terror had been for Oliver. Everything she'd done had been done for love. But when someone does terrible things, even for the sake of something so pure as love, they can be overridden by anger. When she had been bonded with the Arcturian, it latched onto the strongest parts of her, that parts most compatible with the power it granted her. Those were her anger, fear, cunning, and insecurities, and while these had been originally fueled by good intentions, caring was not something the power could use. Power needed to be selfish, so when Bridget died, the caring woman who was Oliver's mother did not come back. All that remained was a shell, a shell that gloried in pain and anguish. A shell that had murdered her own son and enjoyed every moment of it.

Bridget hates Kaz. She had begun to even before becoming Mr. Terror. Kaz was trouble. He'd always been dragging Oliver into stupid ideas, and dangerous plans. He had also made Oliver happy, which, while being the only reason she allowed Oliver to go near him, also made her jealous. Oliver had never had many real friends. He was a quiet, smart, sweet, comic book geek, who didn't easily open himself up to new people or situations. Kaz was a tornado that swept him away from his quiet life with Bridget that she'd enjoyed so much. Without Kaz, Oliver had needed her. With Kaz, Oliver had to develop his own opinions, defenses, and will power to shut down Kaz's crazier ideas. Suddenly, with Kaz around, Oliver was growing up. Kaz had stolen Oliver away from her, and she could only clutch after him feebly, because in her heart of hearts, she knew it was for the best. Before, Bridget had resented him. Now, after the Arcturian, she hates him with a passion. Loved or not, Oliver was her son. He should have followed her footsteps, used his powers for her. They should have been on the same side. And if Oliver had never met Kaz, never found Mighty Med, never befriended superheroes, then that would have happened. It was all Kaz's fault that her son had been corrupted, stripped of his potential before the darkness could even touch him.

Yes, Bridget hates Kaz. That's the only reason he's still alive. Bridget is tempted to kill him. She'd planned to, right when he came through the door, looking like his world was falling in around him. She'd wanted to make him realize that she was the reason Oliver was dead. No, to make him understand that he was just as responsible for it was she was, because he was too late. Then he'd told her about Mighty Med, and she realized that his world really had fallen, and it was just too beautiful.

Kaz, the joker, the class clown, the last person anyone would expect to be a hero, was the last superhero on the planet. The only one left alive, out of all of them. She could kill him as easily as breathing. And it would bring it's own brand of satisfaction. However, it would be even better to let him live, to force him to face that broken world each and every day for the rest of his life. He would cause problems, of course, but she broke him. Kaz is broken, she thinks delighted, and broken tools can't fix anything. It would be better to let him live out his broken life, haunted, shattered, and doomed to be ever alone, never understood by anyone. The last of his kind.

While Bridget mused and plotted, Kaz stared at his best friend's lifeless face, wishing with every atom of his being that Oliver's eyes would open, and it would all be a joke. Bridget, the mother of his closest friend, wasn't actually a supervillain. She hadn't killed Oliver. Oliver wasn't lying limply in his arms, battered and dead. Of course not. It was a nightmare he could wake up from, and he would go to school, and then to Mighty Med, as usual. Save the heroes, avert disaster, hang out with Oliver, throw some words onto his homework so Oliver wouldn't yell at him, and then he'd go to bed, and do it all over again.

But it's not a dream, he realizes, as he traces a bruise on Oliver's wrist. Bridget is a supervillain. Mighty Med is dust. Oliver is dead, Bridget killed him, and Kaz was too late to save him. He's sat, overwhelmed by the pain of loss, and betrayal, and guilt. But now, now Kaz feels nothing but anger. Anger and loathing, pure loathing, towards the woman before him. They flood him, calling the fire to his veins. His power cries for vengeance, and Kaz is more than ready to oblige.

But for a single moment, he pauses, because it's completely unfair. This never should have happened. Bridget never should have had to resort to becoming a villain to save her son. Oliver never should have had to choose between his mother and his best friends. Kaz shouldn't be the last hero, the only one who survived. His friends should still be alive, and Oliver should still be alive, and have a mother who loves him more than anything.

It isn't fair, but it is real.

Kaz gently brushes his fingertips over his best friend's shoulder. I'm sorry, he whispers in his head. I should have saved you. He can hear Oliver telling him not to be an idiot, and for a moment it calms him. Then the realization that his head is the only place he'll ever hear that voice again causes his anger to burn even brighter. Vengeance, his soul screams, and he listens.

Carefully shifting Oliver off of his knees, Kaz stumbles to his feets, drifting closer to Bridget. She'd still so lost in her own thoughts that she doesn't notice him until he's mere steps away from her. His eyes are so broken, she doesn't listen to the power rushes through her that screaming to incinerate the child where he stands. She just watches him drift closer, satisfaction running through her, knowing that it was she who had reduced him to this. It was she who had broken him.

Kaz stumbles forward, catching himself on the arm of her chair. He hangs onto it a moment, shaking like a leaf in a gale, holding the bar like it's the only real thing in his world. Eyes on the floor, tears glinting in his eyelashes, he speaks quietly, voice rough with guilt, and self-hate.

"You're right," he admits, and it's music to Bridget's ears. "I- couldn't save him," Kaz nearly sobs.

He straightens up, looks into her eyes, and his own are broken, shattered. Damaged beyond hope of repair. But they are also full of fire.

"I couldn't save him," he whispers again in a stronger, darker voice, as she suddenly realizes the significance of the flames in his eyes, and is, for the first time since being reborn, very afraid.

"But I can avenge him." The flames roaring in his eyes leap to Kaz's hands, and Bridget only has time to jerk back in her chair to try to escape them before the inferno overwhelms her. She is frozen, frozen as she burns. The last thought in her mind is surprise. Surprise that Kaz dared attack her, came through his fear to use his powers. Bridget had been so certain that she had broken him, that he wouldn't dare rise up against her, that he wouldn't even conceive the idea, that she hadn't guarded against him. But she was also surprised that her powers had not saved her. She had been assured in her own invincibility. Nothing had touched her until Kaz's flame, and nothing would ever touch her again. Nothing would have cause to.

Kaz falls to his knees, suddenly boneless, letting the flames go out before his hands hit the floor. He's entirely drained, having run the past few days on caffeine and concern for his friend. He's shaking, in shock, coming off the worse adrenaline rush of his life. The horror of finding Mighty Med demolished, Oliver dead by Bridget's hand, and the rush of energy and anger needed to defeat her leaves him broken, undone.

Kaz has always been fire, burning bright, throwing off his own unique energy, and setting fires wherever he went. When he got his powers, it only became more literal. But here, now, faced with the slumped form of his worst enemy, his best friend dead, and utterly alone, Kaz feels nothing but cold.


End file.
